Metropolis Magazine
May 1996
Harmonious Fragments
By Akiko Busch
You may have heard the expression
that architecture is frozen music, but the Decca Record Company in London has
taken the metaphor a step further, using images of buildings to market CD’s
from its classical music division. It’s a sound strategy, and not just
for selling CD’s: the concept invariably invites us to reassess these buildings
we thought we knew. Is I. M. Pei’s east wing of the National Gallery in
Washington, D.C., in fact, solidified Prokofiev? Is it a comment on the work
of Michael graves that his library at San Juan Capistrano accompanies Camille
Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals? And what about the appearance of
the jutting pyramid from Arata Isozaki’s Museum of Contemporary Art in
Los Angeles on the cover of a Beethoven violin concerto? Is the subtle visual
message that this is not easy-listening music?
But the real irony here lies in the fact that the images used are all the work
of architectural photographer Jenny Okun, whose own sensibilities may lie closer
to the music of Philip Glass than the classics. Elements of the works of both
Okun and the existential, electronic music composer are strikingly similar —
there’s a kind of stacato-like rhythm, a meditative reiteration of theme,
studies of continuity and discontinuity, and most of all, grace through repetition.
Okun records architectural structures through multiple exposures. Using a large-format
Hasselblad camera, she takes a picture, then advances the film only slightly
to achieve a layering effect. A single image may comprise six such overlays,
which might then become part of a triptych. Okun’s background is in film,
so it follows that the spatial information unfolds sequentially; the images
are fragmented and superimposed, causing unexpectedly lyrical interpretations
of buildings and space to emerge.
Yet for all their abstraction, what is also compelling about these images is
their essentially traditional and time-honored approach to the documentation
of architecture. These days, architectural photography tends to consider circumstances
beyond the built form- climate, use, landscape, and human accessibility —
to position the building in its social and environmental context. Okun, however,
sticks to the structural facts; her images read as formal records and revelations
of space, form, color, and light.
Not surprisingly, architects, developers, and corporate clients — including
recording companies — have found value in Okun’s elegant images. Her
photographs and triptychs have been exhibited widely in the United States and
England and are included in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert
Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Jenny Okun divides her time between Los Angeles
and London and can be contacted through the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica,
California